Cary Clack: Giving without taking dignity

Published 12:00 am, Sunday, December 12, 2010

Fifteen years ago, a crusty, kind and wise city editor for this newspaper named Craig Thomason told me, “Never underestimate the heart of San Antonio.”

It's still as good and accurate a motto for this city that I've ever heard. Collectively and individually, there are daily examples of this community's thoughtfulness and generosity.

The holiday season may magnify this generosity as the poor and elderly are treated to sumptuous dinners and underprivileged children are given toys. Elf Louise, Blue Santa, the San Antonio Fire Department, Family Service Association and countless businesses and organizations are seasonal reminders of the angels in our midst as they give so that no child goes without Christmas presents.

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But is it always necessary to film and photograph these exchanges of the heart? Isn't the best giving that which is done without fanfare and is, instead, a private act of communion between the giver and the receiver?

Sometimes, in the spirit of the season and in our well-intentioned exuberance to capture and preserve snapshots of the meaning of Christmas and to illustrate San Antonio's heart, do we embarrass some of the poor who are being helped?

This isn't meant to offend anyone; if anything, it's only a suggestion that we in the media think about whose space we intrude on.

Images such as hundreds of people being fed at a Thanksgiving or Christmas feast or of 5-year-old children being taken shopping or presented with gifts at a party is one thing.

Every day, the media is forced to cover heart-breaking and dispiriting news and welcomes opportunities to showcase people at their best and working together to help others.

The image that concerns me is that of a poor 12-year-old child whose home is being visited by kind strangers delivering gifts and food to her and her siblings and parents; kind strangers followed by other strangers with cameras.

Imagine being that child and of being painfully conscious of your poverty, of being embarrassed at the clothes you wear and the condition of your home. You've tried your best to not let your friends and schoolmates know how poor you are; you may have even lied about where and how you live, not because you were trying to enlarge yourself in the eyes of your friends but only because you didn't want to feel diminished at all that you don't have.

You're grateful that the kind strangers have made this Christmas so much better for you and your family, but tonight on the TV news and tomorrow in the newspaper, everyone at school, everyone in the city, will know how poor you are.

Maybe if you're the parents of this child you also are uncomfortable and embarrassed. Maybe you're among the working poor or have been laid off and unable to find new jobs and are struggling mightily to bring a little Christmas magic into your children's lives.

Words can't express the gratitude you feel for the kind strangers who've sparked that magic in this holiday season. Yet you don't want your struggles made public and you don't want your children to be embarrassed in front of their friends.

Can you say no to cameras without appearing ungrateful? Should you have been placed in that situation?

Our concern for the poor should include caring about their pride.

One good argument for the cameras — unwanted or not — is that such stories help raise awareness and bring more help to more people.

This is San Antonio. It's Christmas.

It's not as if there is a shortage of opportunities to film or photograph beneficiaries who welcome the opportunity to publicly thank the people who have made the season merry for them.

But let the decision be theirs and allow them to have some control of how they're presented to the world.

The grace of unconditional giving and of genuinely appreciated receiving creates a sacred space between people. It's a space that sometimes should only be shared between them. It's a space that speaks not only to the meaning of Christmas but of humanity at its best.